A desire for an increasing power output per turbine requires wind turbines with larger generators, which in turn need larger blades to capture more energy from the incident wind. Such turbines also require wider and taller towers to support the blades, nacelle and other components. The increasing physical dimensions of modern wind turbine towers lead to difficulties in transporting the tower from the manufacturing site to the installation site where the wind turbine is to be constructed. For this reason, for some towers, each vertical section of the tower formed at the tower production site is divided into a number of longitudinal segments for easier transport to the installation site. The segments are smaller than a whole vertical section and can be transported more easily.
However, upon reaching the tower erection site, this number of segments must be gathered again to complete the tower. In one method for gathering the segments, flanges have been welded upon the segments along the division line for the segments to be gathered again by e.g. bolts. Ideally, upon arrival to the tower erection site, the segment flanges will then fit together turning the segments into a perfectly conical shaped section to facilitate mating with adjacent tower sections. However, in reality deformation of the segments may occur when these are transported to a tower erection site, for instance due to gravity influence on the segments during transport and gathering. With such misaligned segments in both horizontal and vertical directions, it may be difficult to gather the segments into sections again as such misalignments may prevent fasteners from being passed through the apertures of adjacent flanges.
Therefore a need exists for an improved method for gathering such tower elements.